Pierced earrings usually include a base with a decorative feature and a post or hook on the back of the base or connected to the top of the base which is placed through a pierced hole in the wearer's earlobe. When purchasing pierced earrings, it is desirable to view how the earring will look when worn in one's ear. Therefore, the purchaser must either insert the post or hook into his or her earlobe or hold the earring up to his or her ear and look in a mirror. In addition, after purchase, a similar desire exists to view an earring with clothing the user is wearing without the time and possible discomfort of actually putting on the earring.
The first option of putting the earring in ones earlobe can be unsanitary as it requires contact between a foreign object, i.e. the post of the earring to be purchased, and one's skin. It is likely that other potential purchasers have previously placed that particular earring in their earlobe. Because most stores do not have a policy of cleaning the posts or hooks of earrings after potential purchasers try them on, if a first potential purchaser has an infection in his or her pierced ear, the next potential purchaser to try on a particular earring could possibly contract that infection.
The second option is awkward and not very effective in determining just how the earring will look in one's ear. The view of the earring-in-ear will always be partially or completely obscured by the purchaser's fingers or hand holding the earring next to the earlobe. This is particularly true when purchasing small, stud-type earrings.
Therefore, it is desirable for the earring purchaser to have a device that would allow him or her to be able to view what the earring would truly look like in his or her ear and also do so in a sanitary manner.